Editors' picks across 8categories — the dock with the deepest channel, the winery with the view, the restaurant with the right wine list, the trail nobody's on at sunrise.
A 30,000-square-foot outdoor restaurant on a bluff 450 feet above the lake, marketed as the "Sunset Capital of Texas" for its terraced west-facing decks — American and Tex-Mex, and the largest outdoor restaurant in the state.
Visit ↗A full-service, upscale-casual restaurant at Volente Beach Resort & Waterpark — burgers, wings, pizza, and entrees on the shore of the lake's northern arm.
Visit ↗The marina closest to Austin on Lake Travis — boat slip rentals and party boat rentals.
Visit ↗A marina close to downtown and North Austin — double-decker party barges holding up to 50 people.
Visit ↗An Austin-owned powerboat facility 45 minutes northwest of downtown, with 140 covered and wet slips.
Visit ↗One of the largest fleets of double-decker party boats, pontoons, and wakesurf boats on the lake — every rental includes free access to Volente Beach Waterpark and Beachside Billy's.
Visit ↗The dam that created Lake Travis — construction began in 1937 at 200 feet planned, but catastrophic flooding in July 1938 forced a redesign to 278 feet before completion in 1942. The finished dam runs 7,098 feet long and 266 feet at its maximum height, renamed in 1941 for U.S. Representative Joseph J. Mansfield.
Visit ↗A boat-only cove on the lake's north shore, between Marshall's Point and Northshore Marina, with no road or beach access — the site of Lake Travis's best-known floating party scene, with hundreds of boats tying together on summer weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day.